Page:Bengal Vaishnavism - Bipin Chandra Pal.djvu/90

ART IN BENGAL VAISHNAVISM 76 But the special feature of these Yaishnava lyrics is their unconscious reference to the sex romance, wherein all these episodes, either of aakhya or of hatsalya, are made to culminate and find their highest and final self-fulfilment. Because the object of all these is really to quicken the romantic love of the devotee for his Deity, the cultivation of this sentiment vicariously through the contemplation of the eternal love-sport of Shree Krishna with His FrakHti is the soul and essence of the Vaishnavic bhakti cult in Bengal. And though Shree Kadha is this Frakriti in a specific sense, all the Gopinees, whether they are mothers or wives, as well as the youths and playmates of Shree Krishna in Brindabana, are really included in Shree Radha — are manifestations of Shree Radha on different planes of our many-sided romantic relations. In fact, psychologically or more correctly perhaps psycho-physically, all the romances of human relations have, however uncon- sciously or subconsciously, a universal sex reference. There is this sex reference, however unconscious we may be of it and however shocked we may feel at the mere mention of it, even in the other three raaa-s, the daaya, the aakhya, and the bataalya of our Yaishnavic